| #461 |  | 857 |  |
December 12, 2010 |  | By Dr Monika Chansoria | ||
|
French President, Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent visit to India, should give both nations reason to smile. The checklist of avenues for future Indo-French cooperation looks more than pleasing. There is mutual understanding to jointly focus on making the G20 forum more representative and effective. Some of the focus areas will be monetary instability, major macroeconomic imbalances, volatility of the price of commodities, development gaps especially vis-à-vis infrastructure and lack of food security. France has also reiterated its support for India’s quest for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council.. The fact that India assumes dual participation both, in the G20, and the Security Council for the 2010-11 timeframe, only stands to strengthen its case. Additionally, France has also assured that they favour India’s participation in international non-proliferation initiatives and multilateral export control regimes such as the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, Wassenaar Arrangement and the Missile Technology Control Regime. Significantly, the French support for India should also act as a catalyst towards furthering European Union (EU) and India ties. The entry of the Lisbon Treaty into force is a testament to enhanced cooperation between India and the EU. The upcoming EU-India Summit ready to get underway in Brussels in December 2010 is riding high on expectations of achieving mutually beneficial results. The two prime sectors where Indo-French collaborative efforts in its strategic partnership are best reflected is in the realm of defence and civilian nuclear energy cooperation. Defence Collaboration India shares strategic perceptions and also maintains a long-standing defence collaboration with France. These include regular annual meetings of the High Level Committee on Defence Cooperation and partnership in R&D and procurement issues. The founding of the annual forum on research and technology in 2002 and signing of the Indo-French Defence Agreement in 2006 have served as milestones in the area. In the case of defence equipment, the supply of strategic equipment including fighter aircraft and submarines and state-of-the-art technology for requirements of the Indian armed forces’ are as key pillars to the relationship. In addition, joint exercises such as the Indo-French naval exercise, Varuna 2009, held for the first time in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Brittany in France in mid-2009 where INS Delhi, Brahmaputra, Beas and the tanker INS Aditya participated, have contributed towards improving inter-operability. This should also bolster measures to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. security, especially Next, in June 2010, the two nations also joined up for an air exercise, Garuda IV in Istres with the participation of SU-30 MK aircraft from India. Given the fact that India has floated a tender for purchasing a whopping 126 medium multirole combat aircraft, often said to be the defence ‘contract of the century’, the French aircraft, Rafale, is in the running and reportedly completed field trials conducted under stringent deadlines in Spring 2010. One of the most important French equipment acquired by India till now are the Mirage 2000 fighter aircraft in the early 1980s. The desired upgrading and modernisation of this fleet is under discussion and expected to be executed by Dassault, Thales and MBDA. Another key project presently underway is the manufacture of six Scorpene submarines at the Mazagaon docks in Mumbai. Other joint defence development projects include the Maitri project for a surface-to-air defence missile system, involving transfer of technology by French company MBDA to the Defence and Research Development Organisation (DRDO) from India. The Kaveri fighter aircraft engine is to be jointly developed by the DRDO and SNECMA, along with the supply of reconnaissance and observation helicopters, further providing a mirror of the growing gamut of Indo-French defence cooperation. The signing of the Framework Agreement between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and French National Space Agency (CNES), New Delhi and Paris will facilitate cooperation on space and its usage for peaceful purposes. The joint development of the Megha-Tropiques satellite to study tropical climate and SARAL (Satellite for Argos and Altika) satellite for seasonal forecast, oceanography and climate studies, due to be launched in 2011, underscores the significance of space exploration. Civilian Nuclear Cooperation The India-France Cooperation Agreement on the Development of Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy which entered into force in January 2010, has enabled India to step out of the shadow of nuclear apartheid. France was the first country to sign a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India soon after the Nuclear Suppliers Group ended the international nuclear trade embargo on it in 2008—in what could best be interpreted as providing the much needed thrust to build atomic power plants in India. The Indo-French nuclear agreement allows for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel from French atomic reactors under safeguards, providing an assurance of a lifetime supply of nuclear fuel for these reactors, becoming only the second nation after Russia to grant unconditional rights to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to India. As many as seven agreements in civilian nuclear energy were signed during President Sarkozy’s visit. The key agreement is the General Framework Agreement for setting up a nuclear plant in Jaitapur, Maharashtra—the first of its kind. Under the agreement, construction of two 1,650 MW nuclear power reactors at the cost of $ 25 billion ultimately expected to produce 10,000 MW of power has been arrived upon. This first phase of the project will come to fruition with the first of these two nuclear power plants becoming operational in approximately seven years. The agreement is expected to provide a critical boost to India’s current nuclear power generation capacity which stands at 4000 MW. The actual operationalisation of this agreement, though, is subject to resolving pricing between the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) and the French company, Areva. The other pacts signed in the civilian nuclear field include the Early Works Agreement between NPCIL and AREVA for implementation of EPR units at Jaitapur; research and training of scientists; nuclear safety; nuclear waste management and regulatory practices. The collaboration in defence and nuclear energy is a visible manifestation of a strategic relationship that is only expected to get further strengthened with the passage of time. Dr Monika Chansoria is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) (The views expressed in the article are that of the author and do not represent the views of the editorial committee or the Centre for Land Warfare Studies).
| ||||||||
| ||||||||
